


Cold-Hearted Bastard

by twentyfourshreds



Category: Rick and Morty
Genre: Abuse, Blood and Injury, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Morty takes a stand, Rick is an Asshole, bit more extreme perhaps, not c-137, the abuse is like... pretty canon typical, uh yeah
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-03
Updated: 2020-10-03
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:55:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26794729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twentyfourshreds/pseuds/twentyfourshreds
Summary: Morty had had enough of Rick's bullshit and he decided that he needed to do something about it before he dies at the hands of his grandfather.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 8





	Cold-Hearted Bastard

**Author's Note:**

> I apparently got fed up with some personal stuff and this became of it. Aren't you proud of me that there's no crying for once?

"I resent you," as soon as the sounds left his lips he solidified the very thought that had been swimming in his mind for three years. He resented every action, every word, every thought that had anything to do with that man-- if he even deserved that title.

A small part of him suggested that yes, he did, but with great caution. That calling the alcoholic, egomaniac, sociopathic, son-of-a-bitch, who called himself the father of his mother a man was dangerous grounds; a mass murderer, terrorist, and nymphomaniac monster, now permanently labelled in his mind as Him-- capital, all-encompassing, above all others-- was really just a very sick old man, who needed help more than anything in all of time or space.

His mind shied away from that train of thought, it wouldn't help him right here, right now, with a left hand flying towards his skull, something shatterable and sharp clutched in the knobbly fingers, he watched the bottle fly loose from the skeletal hand, hurtle past his head, the wind of its travel ghosting over his shoulder and ear, and then he heard the cymbal-like crash of the bottle against the concrete wall behind him. It set everything into motion.

"Leave." The command was calm and soulless. And by instinct, his body lurched to the side to run, but something had halted him mid-action. He turned to face the looming figure.

In an act of defiance that almost shocked himself, he spoke: "And if I don't?"

The figure of his grandfather tensed, and the cold lead ball of fear dropped into his stomach, as he realised too late that this time, it was not in his best interest to stand up for himself, and he should have run.

"If you don't--" his grandfather's body lurched forwards, the crusted neon yellow blood of the Gloraerians the two had slew no less than fifteen minutes before coating his hands and face reached out "--your pathetic, weak, emotional little brain--" the hand latched onto the front of his shirt pushing him back from the maniac "--may just be able to get it into the little nooks and crannies that it lacks so severely--" a foot knocked his legs from underneath him and the countertop hit him squarely between the shoulder blades, a searing numb jolt coursed down his arms at the same time as his grandfather spoke "--that I will never need you now, tomorrow, or the resulting days until my untimely death at the hands of some unforeseen force, and that I have never needed your help on anything. I have only ever _asked_ for your company. You will know, that every waking moment of your life is meant to be servicing me-- and any other higher power-- until you get too stupid and complacent to recognise that without the help you'd die-- sad, alone, and with no purpose at any moment in your miserable existence." 

There was spittle flying off of his grandfather's lips, and he flinched back with every drop. His head lolling in time with the violent presses of his shoulders into the countertop, and the ugly jab of one spiny finger into his sternum, that was sure to leave a perfectly round bruise in the centre of his chest. He said nothing as his grandfather took out the unwanted frustration on his grandson when he knew that it was full of empty threats, and knowledge that was well past the state of being old news to the young man.

He blinked tiredly, and in the lull of the aftermath asked his grandfather calmly, "Are you done?"

A look of disdain passed over the old, wrinkled face, and stayed. The claw of a hand that had knotted in his shirt suddenly released the now stretched fabric and he crumpled to the ground in surprise. His head banged against the edge of the counter and once more against the cabinet door as his ass hit the concrete ground, clicking his teeth shut with the force of his tailbone taking the brunt of the impact. In the span it had taken him to fall, the figure had backed away, and was turning from his gaze, silent and unwilling to answer.

"You would think," he began, a glint of the same recklessness in his eyes, and the tug of a roughish smile at the corners of his thin lips almost betrayed his voice, "that an old man like you would have learned that after four years of instilling the same, relentless thought process into an impressionable youth, would only get so far, and soon after teaching that very same mind to not 'be sheep,' the repercussions would be strong. The mind you moulded would be miles different than the one you started with."

The glint in his eyes flashed as they flicked from the figure to the gun close at hand.

"Every dimension higher, equals a dimension better, right?" The words were oddly sing-song in the air.

There was the sudden low fizz of a blaster and his grandfather's head turned incrementally to stare from the corner of his eye, the purple glow illuminating the nearly crazed look of determination on his face.

"Mor-" A blast whizzed by his head, burning through the garage door.

"Warning shot, Grandpa." The smile of his off-white teeth looked jagged and animalistic.

Once on his feet, standing tall and proud, he paused for a small breath. In a flash of white fabric and green light, his grandfather stood gun-to-gun, stony eyes dark with malice.

"Don't play games, Morty," the old man sneered, " You've seen what I can do alone, blackout drunk and high off my ass on acid." There was a secondary, higher whine of the green gun, as it reacted to a finger pulled taught over the trigger.

For a split moment the guns drew away from each other, like repulsed magnets, the sizzling hum and whoosh of the blasts passing by both left ears, the smell of singed hair rising slowly with rivulets of smoke. Then the guns drew back together, and they each took one step forwards, heated barrels pressed squarely between the eyebrows, neither backing down.

"I'm not fucking around, Rick," Morty replied, his hand refusing to waver, he needed to get his point across. With all the stealth and strength he could muster he knocked his grandfather's arm away and down catching it in his grasp and turning him down and away with a frenzied kick at the knees. He planted his foot squarely between the shoulder blades of his grandfather and bent forwards with the arm in his grasp, the gun now lying well across the room.

A sharp inhale of breath from his grandfather and he fitted the nozzle of the blaster at the base of Rick's skull, priming the cartridge so the entire device hummed and warmed. There was unseen panic flashing in his eyes as he watched his grandson take back the ground that had been lost for years.

"What are-" The whirring hum of the blaster rose an octave as he pressed the trigger in preparation, and he shut his mouth, biting his tongue in the process.

"Don't you dare, old man. You have spoken enough for the Congress filibusters to be ashamed of." He surprised himself in the obscure knowledge that fell from his mouth but he ploughed through. "You say right here in the audience of the two of us, sober enough and in as good a mind as any in the room that you will shut your fucking mouth and never even attempt that shit ever again."

He could feel spittle wetting his lips but he spoke on, "Four years I have lived with your fuckery, I have obeyed you, I have cared for you, I even loved you, and for everything you threw it back at me with nothing more than a blase wave of the hand or the bladed tongue of your viperous mouth." Jesus, he should have been an author version of himself for all the shit he was spewing. "I need you to say to me now, and mean it, with every quark and ion of your body and mind: I, Rick Sanchez, will never undervalue the life or mind of my grandson, Mortimer Smith Senior, for the very short time of my life I have left."

His grandfather gaped, and he pressed the flesh-warm barrel into his neck whispering, "Say it you demented sack of shit. Say 'I, Rick Sanchez, will never undervalue the life or mind of my grandson, Mortimer Smith Senior, for the very short time of my life I have left."

"M-" His grandfather began.

"What did I just say!" He crowed.

"I, Rick Sanchez, will never under- will never undervalue the life or mind of my grandson, Morty- Mortimer Smith Senior, for the very short time of my life that- my life I have left." His grandfather's voice was paper-thin and shaking. It was not up to par with his grandson's standards and he laughed mirthlessly and shook his head.

"Mean it!" He shouted

Rick repeated the words firmer than before but he cried out for another repeat, and Rick obliged.

By the fifth call for the promise, and obliged answer the gun came away slowly, a soft smile pressing the still-round face of his grandson into a peaceful mask.

Then there was the fizzing buzz of the blaster and the searing sharp stab of pain in his abdomen, and with a look of utter shock and betrayal, his grandfather fell to the ground, hands scrabbling at his stomach in search of the wound site, turning around to face the grandson who almost quite literally stabbed him in the back, and a finger dipped into a screaming, raw wound above his liver. He sat back on his heels, staring up at his grandson who tossed the blaster at his figure and with a cold glint in his eyes grabbed the portal gun that was sitting discarded on the counter and began punching in coordinates. He began to raise the gun.

"Well," the voice that came out of his grandson was even and calm, "like grandfather like grandson, I guess they could say, dear Grandpa Rick."

There was the paper soft tearing of the fabric of space and the scene was awash in neon green. His eyes locked onto his grandfather's and he gave him a puff of amusement and a final parting word.

"Scum."

And then he fell to his left into the portal, and the green shrunk into nonexistence, leaving Rick in a steadily growing pool of his own blood, one hand grasping the exit wound, the other the blaster, his once neon yellow hands were quickly turning to a sickly orange and the only thing that came out of him was a small, short expletive:  
"Fuck."

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading.


End file.
